Our Vision (at the individual level)

We want athletes and coaches to be able to analyze their training in a way that allows them to experiment and iteratively alter training parameters for future training blocks. An example analysis will illustrate how we want our clients to be able to interact with their data and make actionable changes to training during a single training session, after a training micro-cycle(~1-2weeks of training), meso-cycle(~1-3 months of training, also called a “block”), and at the macro-cycle level (~ >3-6months, also called a “meta-block”).

Using data at the week’s level.

It’s generally not a good idea to take one week’s data in an attempt to describe progress, as performance fluctuations (or lack thereof) within the week have a degree of randomness, and performance over the span of one week does not dictate the trajectory of the program as a whole (as we’ll come to see soon). Assessing weekly adherence to a trianing protocol is a better use for data on a time-scale of ~7-14 days (as opposed to assessing progress). You’d be surprised at how often people veer off program, this sample of 324 individuals showed that about 5% (17 participants) were even close to adhering to the program fully. For example, if one’s program calls for 5 sets of 5 at RPE 7 on the squat 2x per week (5x5 @ 7 x 2), 4x10 @ 7 x 2 on bench, 3x5 @ 8 x 2 on deadlift, and 4x5 @ 8 x 2 on overhead press, we can compare expected and actual outcomes in a weekly summary…


Using data at the meso-cycle/block level.

This is where the fun begins. A few months of training data and a couple valid assumptions can contain multiple insights to aid in future training programming for an individual. Here is an example block analysis for my own training data. I’ll focus on the three main movements to keep it simple — the squat, the bench press, and the deadlift.

Potential insights:

Leading into the next block, I decided to increase the sets/week and decrease intensity accordingly. In the 3rd block, I tried to keep most variables similar to the second, except I “front loaded” volume on the squat (performed most of the high volume weeks in the first portion of the block). I also increased the bench volume. Let’s see the results of adjusting the training parameters in a meta-block review. I’ll examine the only the squat for the sake of brevity…

Using data at the meta-block level

The greatest variables to check are volume and intensity, followed by frequency (provided exercise selection is relatively specific). We look at the following metrics

insights from comparing blocks 1 to 2 and 3…

Insights from comparing blocks 2 and 3…

Going forward…